Today's Racing Tips: Side with Wheeler to tear it up at Huntingdon

• Moore the merrier for unexposed chaser

• Former pointer can make winning start

• Huntingdon test ideal for selection

Huntingdon, 14.01 - Rip Wheeler @ 11/53.20

As a relation to both Violet Dancer and Chris Pea Green, there is a chance Rip Wheeler could become a much better chaser than he was hurdler.

The Walk In The Park gelding tackles the larger obstacles for the first time in public in this Class 5 novices' handicap and, having earned his handicap mark in some above average novice hurdles, he could be poised to exploit a rating of just 97.

Two fair efforts last term in novice handicap hurdles - the first at Sandown behind stablemate Casa Loupi and the second at today's venue when going down by a neck to a horse who won his next two starts - suggest the selection should find this test within his capabilities providing he has continued to mature from when we last saw him.

Rip Wheeler still looked raw back in the spring when he lost concentration after hitting the front two hurdles from home and was overhauled close home by subsequent Casting Aspersions.

Gary & Josh Moore's half-brother to Coniston George impressed with his physique that day, looking for all the world like a chaser biding his time over hurdles and hopefully that view will be vindicated here. 

Flat break a much needed initiative

Those who crave fewer daily race meetings have their wish this week with the flat practitioners taking a well-earned week off in the UK.

The powers that be will rightly point out that this is not a new initiative and breaks for both codes have been previously factored into the programme for some years.

However, I do wonder if this initiative could (or indeed may) need to be rolled out a little more extensively in the future given horse racing in this country has two core products; flat and jumps racing and giving each entity a small break, two or three times each calendar year would surely prove a great benefit to the industry.

In a sport where the daily product has somehow been allowed to reach saturation levels, sections of the industry's workforce is at breaking point with early starts and late finishes contributing to a drain on employment resources with staff finally saying enough is enough and leaving to focus on alternative careers.

This week's flat racing break gives those that work on that side of the industry the chance to have a number of successive evenings off and the opportunity to reconnect with family and friends after putting those relationships on the back burner for a number of months.

Not everyone relishes that opportunity, I appreciate that, but the chance to pause and refresh following an unrelenting summer and autumn workload must surely be welcome.

It won't be long before a proliferation of all-weather racing reaches our screens and, if this winter is similar to a number that have preceded it, the field sizes in January and February won't stand up and we will once again be subjected to small fields and a sub-standard product.

That is no good for the sport's integrity or the levy as media payments will still have to be paid in spite of a lacklustre core product which fails to generate or hold interest.  

By building small regular breaks for each code into the calendar, the sport's workforce are afforded a moment to pause, refresh and reset which surely can only benefit the longevity and well-being of its personnel.

Now read Timeform's Tuesday racing tips